1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a boardlock for an electrical connector.
2. The Prior Art
Boardlocks are used frequently in electrical connectors for facilitating fastening connectors to a circuit board.
Attaching of a conventional boardlock to a housing for a connector substantially fall into three approaches, as shown in FIGS. 1A, 1B and 1C. In FIG. 1A, riveting is used; in FIG. 1B, a boardlock is bolted onto the housing; while in FIG. 1C, snapping means is used. In all of these three kinds of boardlocks, though the approaches to attaching to a housing are different, the means for attaching to a circuit board are the same. Please refer to FIG. 2, a pair of legs including a pair of outward protrusions are provided on a lower portion of each of the boardlocks shown in FIGS. 1A-1C for fixing into a hole of a circuit board. AS can be seen in FIG. 2, in a conventional boardlock, the narrowest outer width of the pair of legs should be smaller than the diameter of the hole while the widest outer width thereof should be larger than the diameter of the hole to facilitate the insertion of legs into the hole. Since various kinds of circuit boards from different vendors may have different tolerance in relative position between holes and in diameter of holes, such a boardlock design will encounter the problem that there may be a relatively large clearance "t" exists between the outer faces of the legs and the diameter of the hole. This results in escape of the boardlock form the hole of the circuit board in transportation or while vibration occurs before wave-soldering procedure. In addition, the boardlock may escape out of the hole due to the buoyancy of the molten solders during wave-soldering procedure.
Hence, there is a need for a boardlock for an electrical connector that can overcome the above-mentioned problems and shortcomings.